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Law and Disorder

Continued from page 3

Published: September 2, 1999

Two years later she filed for a more ambitious post: the state Court of Criminal Appeals seat being vacated by Democrat Sam Houston Clinton. She was an also-ran in the field for the statewide office.

But Law hardly seemed to view herself as a three-time loser with the electorate. These were warm-ups. Two years after her last defeat, the Republican tide was surging over the Houston electorate. And Eleanor Janice Law was riding that giddy surf.

The formula for victory in 1998 was simple. Get on the GOP primary ballot, with an endorsement from the Steven Hotze-led right-wing Christian conservatives. Hotze's forces, however controversial, got the voters out. Up to 40,000 God-fearing right-wingers were in the hands of the Hotze team.

And Law was one of them.

She had been a team player, a Republican loyalist for three past elections. And Law was first out on the campaign trail, targeting first one and then another bench being vacated by an incumbent. But those plans clashed with the strategy of Hotze's activists, who wanted prosecutors to run for the vacant judgeship positions so they would not have to resign from their jobs. (District Attorney Johnny Holmes had a policy at the time that prosecutors running for office could retain their jobs only if they sought judicial seats being vacated.)

So Law acceded to the wishes of Hotze and stepped aside from two races so prosecutors could run for those open benches. She set her sights on a challenge of Judge Hannah Chow.

Chow, while no legal scholar, had done nothing to raise the ire of the courthouse crew, much less the electorate. But she had one fatal flaw in 1998: She was a Democrat.

And the only real opposition for Law was another small-time lawyer named Mike Monks. He had the distasteful sideline, at least in the eyes of Hotze's organization, of being a bail bondsman as well.

One attorney closely involved with the Hotze effort explained the endorsement of Law. "She'd paid her dues, and she seemed qualified -- she was a former assistant U.S. attorney." Nobody appeared to notice that she'd been released after holding the job for all of about 30 weeks. It did not hurt that her husband was a politically connected partner in a powerful law firm. He'd served as counsel for the local GOP and had even been a member of the city's ethics commission.

Law got the nod for the endorsement, which gave her the GOP primary victory, thanks to Hotze's minions. And the general election was a slam dunk. Law, like most of the other GOP judicial candidates, prevailed by about 7 percentage points, riding Bush's coattails.

She was hardly a household name or even well known around the courthouse. On the long election slate, neither were most of the other bottom-of-the-ballot candidates. But in a few months, Law would gain celebrity status -- the wrong kind -- in the criminal justice system here.

If there was a theme to Law's campaign, it was a fairly standard spiel of reducing backlogged dockets. Her defeated predecessor Chow admitted problems in moving cases, although she'd been plagued by an illness and the death of a close family member.

Once on the bench, Law followed through with a hard -- some say hell-bent -- emphasis on processing the workload in her court. But attorneys found that, rather than a method to her madness, her methods were madness.

Every judge sets limits on attorneys for the time-consuming but important task of selecting juries. Law brought out an egg timer for each side. "It didn't matter if it was the state or defense, or whether an attorney was in the middle of questioning a prospective juror on a vital point or anything else," says one lawyer. "If the egg timer went off, that was it -- she'd stop 'em in mid-question or mid-answer."

While she is pleasant in the courtroom, Law has gained a reputation for her reluctance, or downright refusal, to reset cases, especially for trial. Attorneys had to personally appear in court for those chores. And they had to go before the judge herself to postpone a case.

That process actually contributed to increasing delays for those with business in her court. Law began her docket calls at 8 a.m. -- an hour before most judges.

The 8 a.m. start drew protests from prosecutors, who had to arrive for work at 6 or 6:30 a.m. to prepare for new cases flowing in from the previous evening. After taking their concerns to Law, she delayed the start until 8:30 a.m.

Such sessions are typically finished by mid-morning in many courts. With Law, they regularly extended through the lunch hour and beyond.

Lawyers found themselves waiting out long lines to make their appearance in front of Law. Some attorneys now say they've been forced to charge clients a "Law surcharge," a significantly higher fee when they find out a case has fallen into County Court No. 5. The reason is that it ties them up a lot longer to handle what is quick and routine elsewhere.

However, the focus on fast action carries some contradictory -- if not confounding -- twists.

Law loves hearings, even when there is no need for such time-consuming formalities. Repeatedly, defense attorneys and prosecutors protest that she won't simply accept standard motions for the dismissal of cases, particularly motions to revoke probation.

"There is more than enough legitimate work for those courts -- more than enough to occupy an able-bodied judge, without putting the state through those hearings," says attorney Brian Wice. "When you insist upon hearings, you devalue the currency of what really matters."

Worse, say attorneys, is that Law's penchant for hearings is more than time-consuming. In some cases, it has bordered on breaking the fundamental balance of the justice system by pushing for prosecutions even when the prosecution has determined there is no case. "She's acted at times like the defense attorney and prosecutor, as well as judge," one lawyer says. "That's not her role. We can't believe the places she sticks her nose into."

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